The amazing Flexibility of the human Mind, Emotions and Behaviour

After my stay nearby Sydney in 2005, I had several more weeks in different regions of Australia. I don’t even know exactly anymore how many different places I visited – and also not how much time I actually spent there! I do remember meeting one man though whom I should meet the following year as well – and I have a clear memory of how shocked I was to see his change.

I met this man when I was at my organizer’s home and we liked each other. He was really nice and interesting to talk to. Of course, he had actually first of all come for a session with me. His wife had left him and he was asking for advice and some emotional support. We talked and talked and as we had such a good conversation, he asked whether I would like to meet him on a day when I would not be as busy. He offered to take me out and show me the area. I agreed and we fixed a date and time.

He came, took me for a drive and we did some sightseeing together. We talked, we joked around, I told him of India and our charity projects and he told me of Australian history, of his private life and finally we went into a restaurant to eat. We had a really nice day and I remembered him as a kind, nice and somehow ‘normal’ person – if you can say that about anybody.

The next year he had obviously heard of my visit again and he came to meet me at the same place. He walked in and I was nearly unable to recognize this man as the same one with whom I had been out the year before! He had piercings all over his ears and face! He had exchanged the jeans and t-shirt which I had seen on him the year before with strange black clothes, partly made of leather, making him look kind of pale with his white skin. And then there were the tattoos – several of them ‘adorning’ his upper arms.

It was such an extremely different appearance from the year before that I was completely surprised. But well, he was not the first person with tattoos or piercings with me and so I just greeted him nicely, happy to see an old friend again. In our conversation which then started, he told me that there had been a lot of changes in his life, adding ‘I am gay now!’, obviously curious to see my reaction.

He was also not the first gay man whom I met – also not the first person to find out about his homosexual preferences later in life and so I just accepted this information as it was given to me. He then invited me like the year before to have a day out and that’s what we did.

But oh, when we started really talking, I heard another change! His language and way of talking was fully different and I have to say, much worse than before! Every second sentence contained an abuse and not rarely the word ‘fuck’ in all its variations! That kind of shocked me because in my eyes that was an absolute deterioration from the nice way that we had talked to each other before!

I knew, of course, that this was not the effect of ‘turning gay’ – and my dear homosexual friends, it did not make me think that every gay person will pierce their faces, ink their whole body and start talking dirty! It just amazed me to see that change of one person within only one year.

Isn’t it a miracle how flexible the human mind and emotions are?